


I Felt Like It Would Be Too Much

by Patchwork_Author



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Genre: F/F, Humor, Mild Smut, helena is trying okay. she's new at this, some found family vibes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:54:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23660380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patchwork_Author/pseuds/Patchwork_Author
Summary: Five times Helena thinks she and Dinah are just 'gals being pals' and one time she realizes they might be a little bit more.AKA the fic where Dinah does a body shot off of Helena.
Relationships: Helena Bertinelli/Dinah Lance
Comments: 16
Kudos: 345





	I Felt Like It Would Be Too Much

**Author's Note:**

> This is an unholy combination of stupidity (mine and Helena's), character study and me thirsting over Jurnee. And some smut. Here's hoping that when the oven is set to 375 and it bakes, it actually turns into a delicious fic.

I.

This is what friends do, Helena thinks. They sit around an apartment (Dinah’s new place, in this case), they swap stories and laugh until their abs hurt and drink and it’s…nice. It’s nice even though Harley’s here, nice even when Renee is on the edge of mean-drunk.

It’s nothing like Helena’s ever known before, but she likes it.

She never thought she’d need friends, but now that she has them, it’s filling in all of these phantom aches and sorrows she’s been carrying for so long. She told herself she was fine for so long (because she was alive, unlike her family, and if she got to be alive that meant she was fine), that she didn’t ever quite realize how not-fine she might be. How not-fine she might be capable of being.

It means that she’s feeling some of those hurts now and so she’s happier than she’s ever been, and yet there’s this sheen of pain underneath (on top of the trauma and rage issues Harley keeps talking to her about) and it’s a little confusing for Helena, if she’s being honest.

But she likes it. She likes the happiness.

“Jesus, look at them,” Dinah asks, leaning against Helena. She’s gesturing towards where Harley is in the middle of armchair-analyzing one of Renee’s exes and Renee is egging her on, both of them getting deeper into a bottle of Moscato that makes Helena’s stomach churn.

“I can’t tell if it’s weirder when they get along or when they’re trying to kill each other,” Helena says, and Dinah laughs. At the sound, Helena feels her mouth perk up.

She likes it. When Dinah laughs. Or smiles. Or…anything, really. Dinah’s easy to like. It’s funny, Dinah has her own trauma and wounds but she is…

She feels softer than Helena does. Helena is rough and sharp and she doesn’t know what to say half the time, but _Dinah_ , Dinah’s hurt makes her compassionate. If Helena is precise in her killing, Dinah in precise in how she knows people (and in how effective she can kick a man unconscious) and it makes Helena sit in awe of her.

Or maybe that’s Dinah’s dimples.

No, it’s definitely the other thing.

It isn’t much longer until Renee is asleep in the armchair she was sitting in, still clutching her wine glass, and Harley is contorted in a position on the couch that does not look comfortable, but she’s dead asleep too.

Helena helps load up Dinah’s dishwasher and then heads towards where she stowed her jacket and helmet. She’s about to put it on when she feels Dinah’s hand rest on the small of her back, tries not shiver.

“What’re you doing?” Dinah asks.

Helena turns to look at her. “Uhhh, I…? Leaving?” she says. “It’s late.”

Dinah rolls her eyes. “Yeah, exactly. It’s late, and you’ve been drinking vodka all night. You’re not getting on that bike. Just crash here.”

“Okay,” Helena says a little too quickly, a little too pitchy. She coughs, tries to correct it. “Okay. I…um…where?”

Renee and Harley have already taken all of the comfy spots in the living room, but Helena can make anything work. All she needs is a blanket and a pillow, not even that really, and she can fall asleep on the floor like it’s nothing–

“My bed’s big enough for two,” Dinah says casually, like it’s nothing, and Helena swallows.

“I mean I can take the floor.”

Dinah looks at her. “I’m offering you a nice, warm bed with expensive ass sheets and you’re going to sleep on the floor? No. Come on, you can borrow some of my pajamas.”

She says it like it’s settled so Helena just nods and follows Dinah back to her bedroom.

The pajamas Dinah lends her are, well.

The pants probably go down to Dinah’s ankles, but they don’t on Helena. The shirt probably fits Dinah perfectly, but it leaves Helena’s midriff exposed, not that that’s a problem, her Huntress outfit does too (under the windbreaker Renee keeps bullying her for). She looks absolutely silly and she steps out of the bathroom, back into Dinah’s bedroom, bracing herself to be laughed at.

Dinah does laugh. Once. It’s not even a laugh, really. It’s like…a huff of air. It’s also not mean-spirited. The way she’s looking at Helena is oddly soft and even though Helena feels ridiculous, there’s something about the way Dinah’s smiling at her that makes Helena smile back.

“Sorry,” Dinah says. “Next time, you’ll have to bring your own pajamas.”

 _Next time._ Helena’s brain is drowning in serotonin, she thinks. _Next time. Next time. Next time._

She tells herself to shut up.

They crawl into bed together, and Dinah reaches over to stroke her fingers over Helena’s hand before turning out the lights.

Helena tries not to stare at Dinah, even in the dark.

 _This is what friends do,_ she thinks.

II.

Renee and Harley both bail on helping Helena go apartment hunting. Okay, that’s not fair. Helena didn’t exactly ask Harley to help because while she likes Harley well enough, but she gets the feeling she and Harley don’t have the same tastes. Besides, Harley keeps trying to hand out free psychiatric advice to Helena and while Helena thinks it’s well-intentioned (and usually more helpful than she wants to admit), that isn’t exactly something she needs while trying to find a place to live.

Renee just bails on her. She gets a “sorry, Bertinelli, that’s above my pay grade. Good luck.” And then that’s it.

Dinah must really be an angel from one of the frescoes her father had painted in their mansion, because Dinah doesn’t bail.

She shows up with two coffees (for Helena, espresso, from the place that actually knows how to do coffee right), and doesn’t really even complain that much.

Dinah is a really, really good friend.

They tour three apartments with little to no success before Dinah pulls her aside and looks up at her, a crinkle between her brows that tells Helena she’s about to get serious advice.

“H, what kind of place are you looking for?” she asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Okay,” Dinah says slowly. “Where are you living now?”

Helena pauses. “I mean…I’ve just been crashing at the warehouse…”

“You’ve been living at our headquarters?” Dinah asks. Helena shrugs helplessly. “Before that?”

“Motel.”

“Christ, H. You’re loaded now, you know that? You could have any apartment…hell, you could buy a whole apartment _building_ ,” Dinah says.

Helena looks down at her now-empty coffee cup. “I don’t need a whole building.”

“Forget what you need for like five seconds, okay?” Dinah asks. “What do you want?”

The word _you_ sits at the top of Helena’s tongue, but that’s ridiculous, she tells herself. Friends don’t say that to each other.

“Somewhere comfortable,” Helena says. “Close to the warehouse is good. Close to you is better.”

Dinah softens a little. “A place to call home?” she offers.

Helena shrugs again. “I haven’t had that in a really, really long time. I wouldn’t even know how to begin.”

The places she stayed where just that – places. She had no idea how to turn a room into a home.

“Where do you feel at home now? What feels like home?” Dinah asks, and it’s so, so gentle, Helena thinks she could cry. She’s not used to people treating her gently.

“Your place,” she says without thinking. “I like your place.”

Dinah laughs. “Doesn’t seem like your style, Killer.”

Helena flexes her fingers, trying to see if she can phrase this in a way that isn’t weird. “That’s where everyone is, though. And it’s comfy. It’s…” she pauses. Cocks her head. “It’s you.”

Dinah’s smile is back, and so are her dimples, and Helena’s stomach swoops. “Hey, come with me. I think I have an idea.”

She follows Dinah, and by the end of the day she has an apartment.

It’s on the top floor of a building only one block from Dinah’s, and three blocks from the Birds’ headquarters. If it’s people that make a place home, Dinah has put her somewhere she’s surrounded by her people.

Dinah even buys Helena a stupid little plant that Helena knows she’s going to kill, but she puts on the windowsill anyway, because it’s a start. And because it’s Dinah.

Dinah’s a really good friend.

III.

Helena is at Dinah’s place, just the two of them, because that’s what friends do, sometimes. They just hang out. Helena isn’t very good at it. She’s either restless, or too still, never in between. She’s starting to get better, though.

Today, she’s ordering new bolts for her crossbow while Dinah is cleaning out her closet and it’s almost calming, this domesticity. She doesn’t feel like she needs to do pull-ups, or find a book. There’s no drive for revenge humming in the back of her head. She can just…be.

“Harley bought Cass a skateboard,” Helena says, remembering the picture Harley texted them yesterday.

“Yeah,” Dinah says.

“Did she buy her a helmet?”

Dinah looks over at her. “Harley? Hell no.”

Helena frowns. She knows almost nothing about skateboarding but that doesn’t sound right. Cass is a beginner and the kid is skilled with her sticky fingers, but she doesn’t have the kind of athletic training that would allow her to skip the awkward, injury-prone beginning.

“Do you think Cass would be mad if I got her one?” she asks. “And knee pads?”

Dinah drops down onto the sofa next to her. “I think you can do whatever you want.”

Helena nods, and begins to look for a helmet that Cass won’t hate. She gets a little bit lost trying to find the perfect one, and she doesn’t even notice until Dinah lets out a little laugh.

“What?” she asks.

“Nothing,” Dinah says. She reaches over, running her thumb between Helena’s brows. “You’ve got a little crease. You’re scowling.”

“Oh,” Helena says. She looks at the computer screen and then back up at Dinah. “Why are there so many helmets?”

Dinah shrugs. “Just pick one.”

“I want her to like it,” Helena insists. “And it’ll make her more likely to use it.”

Dinah smiles at her, that big, warm smile with the dimples that makes Helena’s stomach do things.

“You know what I like about you?” Dinah asks.

“I hope it’s not a short list,” Helena says before she can stop herself, because it’s true. She thinks if she started to list off all of the things she liked about Cass or Renee, it’d be quite long. And if she started listing off what she liked about Dinah? They’d be here for hours. Days, maybe.

Dinah laughs. “Alright, you know one thing I like about you?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re kind,” Dinah says and Helena can’t help it.

She laughs. It kind of hurts, because the thoughts in her head hurt, too.

“I’m not… _Dinah_ ,” she says, shaking her head.

Dinah looks at her. She reaches over and brushes Helena’s hair out of her face in a way that’s far too soft and tender for Helena to handle right now. “No, you are,” she says. “You’ve got a hell of a lot of baggage, and I know you’re angry, and I know you’re violent but sometimes I watch you watch the world and as closed off as you can be there’s this kindness, too and–”

Helena laughs again, softly this time, and it doesn’t hurt.

“What?” Dinah asks.

“I think the same thing about you.”

Dinah pulls back, makes a face. “I’m not–”

“That’s bullshit,” Helena says.

“I’m cynical. I’m stubborn–”

“Yeah,” Helena shrugs. “And you’ve got the biggest heart out of anyone I know.”

“I’m not the one shopping for a helmet for Cass,” Dinah says.

Helena puts the computer away. She and Dinah stare at each other. They’ve reached a stalemate. More than that, Helena realizes. Dinah sees Helena the same way Helena sees Dinah. She sees softness in Helena where Helena only sees jagged edges. She sees kindness where there is pain. Helena chokes down a lump in her throat.

Helena gives up the fight then. “Maybe we’re both right,” she says. “Maybe we’re the same.”

Dinah seems to follow. “Busted up but trying. Broken and good all at once,” she says. Helena nods. “Shit, what a pair we make.”

“Island of misfit toys,” Helena says, echoing something she heard Harley say once.

Dinah smiles again. “Hey, if I had to choose anyone to be broken with, it’d be you. Now c’mere. Show me the helmets.”

Helena grabs her computer and they sit together, not an inch of space between them, Dinah practically in her lap as they shop for Cass.

Helena thinks she’s getting good at this ‘having friends’ thing.

IV.

Dinah is her best friend.

Dinah is her best friend, and Helena’s never had a best friend since she was eight. She’s very out of practice, and she wants to be the best friend she can be but she is pretty sure she’s horrible at it. She’s bad at inside jokes and just ‘hanging’ and all of that.

She wants Dinah badly, so badly, and she’s pretty sure best friends don’t do that.

It’s a relatively recent realization, and a very unhelpful one.

They’re all out drinking after a job-well-done, and Harley is there, and they’ve been doing shots  
(even Helena), and Dinah is pressing against Helena in a way that is incredibly distracting but Helena’s doing her best not to look because she is going to be a good friend if it kills her.

It actually might.

“Do you think you have any lingering sadness over missing so many milestones?” Harley asks Helena, after they all learn she didn’t get to go to prom or have a graduation (she figured all of that would be obvious).

“Who needs prom?” Helena asks, which earns her a grunt of appreciation from Renee and a cheers from Dinah.

“Okay maybe not _prom_ ,” Harley says, rolling her eyes. “But you’ve never played spin the bottle, or seven minutes in heaven, never been to a frat party–”

“I don’t see how any of that is worth doing,” Helena says. 

“I mean, next you’re gonna tell me you’ve never played pool–”

“Harley, she whipped your ass _last week_ ,” Dinah says. Helena feels fuzzy at the way she stands up for her, even over something as stupid as pool. And yeah, Helena did make them all look foolish.

“–or you’ve never done the Cha Cha Slide–”

“What the fuck is that?” Helena asks.

“–or you’ve never done body shots…”

There’s a lull, like Harley is expecting more commentary, but Helena has none to give. She doesn’t know the specifics of what a body shot is because, no, she has never done one, but she has the deductive skills to be able to _guess_ what it is.

“You’ve never done a body shot?” Harley says.

“It wasn’t exactly in the Italian Assassin’s handbook,” Helena deadpans, and Harley is squealing as she orders another round of shots for everyone.

Helena really, really doesn’t want to learn what a body shot entails, doesn’t need to, would rather this whole thing was over and they stopped picking apart all of the ways she’s missed out, but it turns out she doesn’t have to worry.

Harley gets a call on her phone from Cass and Renee is ordering herself something else, and then it’s just Helena and Dinah at the bar and it’s all thankfully, blissfully over.

“Harley’s smart, you know,” Dinah says easily, “but she’s also stupid as hell. You don’t have to grow up in remote Sicily to have skipped some of the things she’s talking about. Everyone’s got their own lives, y’know?”

Helena nods. She knows.

“However,” Dinah says, looking up at Helena and toying with her hair in a way that threatens to send shivers down Helena’s back, “if you wanted to try…I could show you. We have these shots. Harley and Renee are gone. It’s just us. You trust me, right? I’m safe.”

Helena nods again, without thinking because yes. Yes, she trusts Dinah. Dinah has been, throughout this all, her safe place. When she’s angry, Dinah breaks through. When she feels awkward and small, Dinah makes her feel less strange.

If it’s _Dinah_ , the answer is always _yes_.

“Okay, honey,” Dinah says, and now Helena _does_ shiver, “just you and me.”

Dinah pulls away from Helena, and Helena manages to pull herself together enough not to pout at the loss of contact. It’s so much colder now that Dinah isn’t pressed against her.

Dinah moves Helena into a better position, apparently, and there’s a smirk toying at her lips. Suddenly Helena has no idea what she’s gotten herself into.

Dinah lifts her hands up to Helena’s face, tilts her head just a little bit to expose the column of her neck and she drips lime juice there and sprinkles salt there. Helena is getting more confused by the second.

“Open up,” she says, and Helena does, and then she places a lime in Helena’s mouth, fingers brushing Helena’s lips.

This is so incredibly strange and foreign to Helena but her brain is shutting down because Dinah is touching her and staring at her. Helena's body is running hot. She might have a fever.

“Ready?” Dinah asks. She pulls Helena forward by her belt loops, licking her tongue right up the side of Helena’s neck. She takes her time, it's slow and hot–

Fuck.

Dinah knocks back the shot with ease. She’s staring at Helena as she brushes her mouth against Helena's lips, takes the lime slowly. Helena feels something in her shatter and she's just frozen as Dinah pulls away. Her eyes are darker than usual, Helena thinks. Dinah drops the lime into her hand.

“You taste good," she husks.

Helena chokes. She’s never felt tension in body like this in her life and her body has been put through hell and back but this? This is something entirely different.

Renee comes over then, hardly sparing them a second glance and says, “Apparently Cass wants to do breakfast tomorrow. Can she crash at yours, Dinah?”

Dinah looks at Renee, and pauses like she’s still processing what she said, like she’s still a little out of it.

“What? Oh. Sure. Cass is always welcome, are we doing breakfast at mine too?” Dinah asks.

“That was the idea,” Renee says slowly, like Dinah is purposefully being a little slow.

“Fine,” Dinah says. “But I’m not cooking.”

“You cooking?” Renee snorts. “Not gonna happen. That’s what you have friends for.”

 _Friends. Friends. Friends._ Helena’s mind is repeating it on loop. _Dinah is my friend. She just had her tongue on my neck and we are very, very good friends._

Dinah looks up at Helena. “I should get the pull-out couch ready for Cass. Wanna come with?”

Helena knows she’ll be in charge of breakfast tomorrow morning. She also knows the last time Dinah went shopping was last week when she and Helena ran to the bodega together.

“I should get breakfast stuff,” Helena says. “Cass will want waffles.”

Cass always wanted waffles.

Dinah nods, drops a few bills on the bar, even though Helena was planning on paying, and they all walk out together, Dinah, Helena and Renee.

“Where’s Harley?” Helena asks.

“Went to get Cass–”

“Harley’s not allowed to crash at mine,” Dinah says.

“–but you know how she is. We never get through girls’ night without Quinn leaving early to cause trouble or blow up a chemical plant or some shit.”

 _Girls night_ , Helena thinks. So this is what girls night is like. She didn’t expect there to be so much…tongue.

V.

They take Cass to get ice cream. This is what family does.

And they are, kind of. Family. Helena isn’t sure how that happened, but these people are her family now. They’re a weird family, but then again, Helena thinks it’s better that way.

They four of them take Cass (and not Bruce, despite Cass’s requests) down to the pier and they all stand lean against the wooden railings, overlooking the ocean and the sunset and they get ice cream.

It’s garbage.

It’s garbage ice cream. It’s not even close to good. The cake cone is a misnomer. It’s not cake, in fact it’s barely even edible. It’s like Styrofoam. Helena watches her vanilla swirl melt slowly, and offers it to Cass when she’s done with the bubblegum-cotton candy monstrosity that has colored her mouth a violent shade of green-blue-brown.

“For real?” Cass asks.

“Yeah, sure,” Helena says and is more than happy to be rid of the thing.

Renee got a milkshake, and Helena is pretty sure she’s spiking it. Harley also got the same monstrosity that Cass did. Dinah opted for a cup, not a cone (the better choice, Helena now realizes, even if the ice cream would still be garbage) and is currently working her way through a scoop of mint-chip, and Helena tries not to stare as she licks the spoon.

“We should do this more,” Cass says.

“I don’t know,” Renee says, “I think Helena will die if we force her to eat anymore of this sugary shit.”

“I can eat it!” Helena protests.

“She just has taste,” Dinah says, rolling her eyes. She tosses her cup into the trash “Hang on.”

She walks off down the pier then and Helena looks at Renee, who just shrugs and sips on her shake.

“We could do this more,” Helena says to Cass. “If you really wanted.” Cass stares up at her and she looks like she’s trying to school her features to stay cool. It’s a look Helena recognizes, because she’s constantly doing the same thing. “And if you do your homework.”

Cass groans. “You were gonna be so cool!” she says, but she’s grinning with her blue-green-brown teeth as she says it.

Yeah. This is Helena’s family, now.

“Okay,” Dinah says and Helena turns to find her walking towards them with a new cup in her hands, holding it out to Helena.

“What is that?” Cass asks.

“It’s gelato–” Dinah starts but Helena cuts her off, unintentionally.

“It’s stracciatella,” she stares, staring down at her cup and then looking up to stare at Dinah. “It’s…how did you know?”

Dinah gets back into her spot, leaning against the pier railing next to Helena, a small smug smile on her lips. “What, that the Italian assassin raised by the most Italian family ever and then in Sicily would prefer gelato to ice cream? Come on.”

“No that–” Helena looks down again, “–that it’s my favorite flavor.”

“Oh, that,” Dinah say with a shrug, “was just a guess.”

“Dinah…”

“Eat it before you thank her,” Harley says. “Could be shit gelato. Then you’ll be heartbroken.”

Helena doesn’t really care. It’s a perfect night. That, in itself, is a new thing for Helena. She didn’t used to care about the weather so far as it affected her work, or scenic views, so far as they meant she was in the right place. Now, though, she saw things like sunsets and she felt things. It’s a perfect night, and she’s here with these strange, wonderful people, and Dinah just went out of her way to get Helena something _and–_

“It’s amazing,” she says, and she doesn’t even have to lie because it is. She holds out the spoon to Dinah without thinking and Dinah takes it. She lets out a hum of appreciation at the flavor.

Helena has maybe never been more into Dinah in her life.

Except maybe the body shots. And every other day of Helena’s life that Dinah’s been in. Whatever.

“Alright, eat your gelato,” Renee nudges Helena, but she’s smiling.

They stay there for a while, putting coins into the tourist binoculars so Cass can look out over the water. When Helena finishes her gelato, it’s time to go home.

Renee takes Cass tonight, and Harley goes off to her apartment. Helena will drop Dinah off at home, considering they live so close together. Before they get to Helena’s bike, however, Dinah tugs on her hand, laughing, and stops her from walking.

“Wait, Killer, c’mere,” she says and Helena freezes as Dinah reaches up, rubbing her thumb on Helena’s cheek, right by the corner of her mouth. “You’ve got gelato right…there.”

Helena doesn’t mean to stare at Dinah as she wipes the gelato from her face but Dinah is right there, and she’s so breathtakingly gorgeous that it’s hard not to stare at her. Helena knows she’s not even the only one. People stare at Dinah. That’s the kind of beautiful she is.

Helena just happens to also be sickeningly in love with her, as well.

“There,” Dinah says. “Now you don’t look half bad.”

Helena laughs because she doesn’t know what else to do. Then she puts on her helmet, pointedly waits for Dinah to put on hers and they get on the bike.

This is not the time to have Dinah pressed against her, but Helena is a good driver. She’s obsessive about safety to the point that Cass actually complained to Harley about it one time. She’ll get Dinah home in one piece.

It’s what friends do.

I.

“Hey, Killer?” Dinah calls. “Can you come help me?”

Helena’s in the middle of washing blood out of her uniform, but she figures it can wait, so she leaves the clothes in the sink at the warehouse to go find wherever Dinah is.

Dinah’s standing in the living room, and she’s half naked.

When she was being trained in Sicily, she was trained to clear her mind. Let it go blank. Let nothing fill your head, listen only to your instincts and let those instincts be sharp. Let them never waver.

Helena’s mind is blank here, but for entirely different reasons.

She’s got half of her jumpsuit off so she’s just standing there in a bra. It’s not fully off, and this is how Helena is reacting. She feels utterly useless.

“The zipper is stuck,” Dinah says, gesturing lamely to her back, where it’s still half-zipped. “Can you get it?”

Helena nods. She still has those instincts, apparently, which she’s grateful for because otherwise she think she’d be frozen in place. She crosses the room to Dinah, tugging at the zipper. It is indeed stuck. She sucks in a breath and holds the fabric up to Dinah’s back so she can close the zipper a little to get it un-jammed.

Dinah’s skin is soft and Helena’s trying not to touch, but it’s impossible.

“Renee is better at this,” she mutters to herself.

“I didn’t want Renee,” Dinah says. “I want you.”

Helena pauses. Oh. She gets the zipper free and tugs it all the way down, trying not to sigh as she slides her hand down Dinah’s back as she goes.

“Thanks,” Dinah says. Her voice is a little breathy. She turns around to face Helena.

_I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you._

Helena feels it in her chest. In her veins. That…doesn’t feel like something friends say. At least, if they do, when they say it, it doesn’t have all of this tension around it. Helena stands here, staring at Dinah, watching the way Dinah stares at her mouth and she wishes she had the words to say what she’s been feeling.

Her mind is moving slow, but she’s always been better with actions, anyway.

Those instincts kick in and Helena steps into Dinah’s space, slides her hands up Dinah’s neck, skim her thumbs over Dinah’s jawline.

“Okay?” she asks.

Dinah curls a hand in the shirt that Helena threw on. “God, yes.”

That’s all Helena needs. She’s terrified, but she’s acting on instinct. They meet in the middle, kissing slowly at first. It’s gentle, the way Dinah pillows her lips against Helena’s, takes her top lip between hers, and then Helena’s bottom one.

Then Helena bites down on Dinah’s lip, tugs ever so gently and Dinah is sliding her tongue into Helena’s mouth and Helena’s hands fall from Dinah’s face to the warm skin of her back and hips, pulling her closer.

If this is what it’s like to kiss, to kiss _Dinah_ , Helena doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to get enough.

“Finally,” Dinah pants against her mouth when they come up for air.

“What?” Helena asks.

“I’ve been dropping hints for ages, babe.”

Helena thinks back, and she feels it hit her. “The body shot.”

Dinah laughs, presses a kiss to her neck, bites down on the skin there to draw out a moan. “That wasn’t the only time,” she says. “But god, I was so desperate that night. And I was so sure it was going to work!”

Dinah. Desperate. Desperate over Helena.

Dinah kisses her again, and it’s not as needy this time, but Helena doesn’t mind. It’s…soft. Tender.

“The gelato,” Helena says with realization.

This time, Helena is getting the message. They're friends. They're also quickly becoming a lot more than that. They've been tripping over that line for ages now.

Dinah pulls back and shrugs, which only draws Helena’s gaze to her chest. “I wanted to do something nice for you,” she says. “But I also wanted to know what gelato would taste like off of your tongue.”

Helena stares at her, and she must look a little feral, if the hunger she’s feeling is apparent on her face. “We can still do that,” she says, pulling Dinah closer.

Dinah laughs, nuzzles her nose against Helena’s cheek. “Later, baby. One step at a time.” Then Dinah toys with the fabric of her jumpsuit, starts to pull it down further. “I gotta shower.”

“Okay,” Helena says, even if she’s sad to have Dinah leave her arms.

Dinah looks at her and it’s coy, yes, but there’s a softness in there, too. She’s looking at Helena with so much _fondness_ that Helena thinks she might burst.

“Do you want to join?”

 _Yes._ “Is that…okay?” Helena asks.

Dinah steps into her space again, pressing a lingering kiss on her lips. “I’m okay with whatever you want.”

Helena doesn’t know how she can feel loved and warm and turned on all the same time, but she can, apparently. There’s something about knowing that Dinah wants her, but Dinah cares about her, is gentle with her, that hits Helena hard. She’s thought it before. No one has ever been gentle with her before. Not like this.

So Helena lets herself want. No restrictions, no mission to focus on, no anything. She just nods. “I want to,” she says.

She follows Dinah into the bathroom, wastes no time getting Dinah out of the rest of her clothes, almost forgets about hers, but Dinah takes her time undressing Helena, kissing her way down Helena’s body as she pulls her pants and boxers down in one graceful motion.

Helena just stares for a moment as they let the water get warm. Dinah is beautiful like the women the old poets used to write about, she’s beautiful in a way that fails Helena in English, in Sicilian, in Italian, in any of the languages she speaks. She’s beautiful in a way that would’ve made the most skilled renaissance sculptor throw down his chisel because he’d never be able to capture her in marble or stone.

Helena finally feels her instincts comes back and she touches. She kisses the dimples in Dinah’s cheeks, traces her hand down Dinah’s spine, feels the dimples at sit there, too. They stumble into the shower and Helena bites down on the smooth skin of Dinah’s shoulders, reveling in the noise that comes from it.

She pulls back to look at Dinah, not caring about the water falling in her eyes.

“You’re…” she breaks off in frustration. She wishes she had the words. “You make my heart sing.” She winces at how it sounds in English, but she wants Dinah to know.

Dinah doesn’t seem to mind, she just kisses Helena, licks into her mouth, grips Helena’s hair in her hands.

Helena is so engrossed with Dinah’s mouth and all of the things it does, all of the sounds it makes, how it feels, that she barely even notices Dinah sliding her leg between Helena’s until she rocks forward and Helena’s breath hitches at the contact.

“Okay?” Dinah asks. Helena nods, buries her head against Dinah’s neck. “God, I want you to feel good. You deserve to feel good, baby.”

It’s such a foreign concept to Helena, it has the heat flickering low in her belly, but that could just be the way she’s grinding down against Dinah’s leg. Maybe it’s both. Definitely both.

She loses herself in the feeling, over the way Dinah’s hands anchor her in place, at the slickness of their bodies sliding against one another, at every throb of pleasure that happens as she rocks herself. Dinah flexes her thigh and Helena nearly moans.

“You don’t need to be quiet,” Dinah says, licking up the line of Helena’s jaw. “I want to hear you.”

She slips one hand between the two of them to brush against Helena’s clit and she gets her wish – Helena can’t hold in the moan that slips out from the back of her throat this time. Dinah circles one, two times and Helena feels her leg muscles shaking not from any stress but from the orgasm that crashes over her.

Her hips stutter but Dinah continues to help her rock through it until she’s spent. She’s leaning against Dinah, pressing all up over her, despite the height difference, Helena could stay here forever.

“Hey,” Dinah says, trailing kisses across Helena’s collarbones. “You good?”

“So good,” Helena says. She lets her hands start to wander, finding Dinah’s ass. Dinah laughs.

“I do really need to shower,” she says. She pushes herself up to lick at Helena’s lips. “Let me finish and then take me home?”

Helena nods, and then she nods again. There is so much she wants to do. She wants to touch and taste and hold and she wants it _all_.

She’s waited this long. She figures she can wait a few minutes more.


End file.
